While the world and his Gerty waits for the verdict on Duncan Jones’ follow up to Moon when his time bending thriller Source Code premieres in Austin tomorrow night word has escaped about his long awaited sci-fi project Mute.
Set in the same universe as Moon, with an epilogue of sorts featuring the character of Sam Bell, Mute’s brief synopsis told of a story about a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. When she disappears, he has to go up against the city’s gangsters. Then Source Code came along, and Mute was pushed back.
A few moments ago Jones tweeted the following,
If anyone has a recommendation on the best publishers for graphic novels, (US only, I’m afraid,) let me know. I’m a researchin’.
Immediately my mind went to Mute, which was at one time to be the next film Jones made after Moon, but when Source Code was announced there were rumours that Mute may become a comic book. Jones tonight confirmed those rumours.
ManMadeMovies brought us the news from Gordon and the Whale who sat down with the man himself to talk over his future projects and Mute came up. Here’s what he said when asked about his third film, and Mute was suggested,
Not MUTE, no. Although, I can sort of tell you that I’ve been talking to my producer today and we have decided that we’re going to release MUTE as a graphic novel. Because we’ve had so many problems trying to get this film made, you know? The people who are involved with financing films have just been…shy…shy of making the script. So what we decided to do is we’re going to make a graphic novel of it, prove it…prove it to an audience that this works and maybe in the future get the chance to come back and make it.
While I’m very pleased we’ll be able to see Mute sooner rather than later I am slightly disappointed that it won’t be the big screen Blade Runner-esque film it was teased to be. The budget was rumoured by be around $25 million when it was shaping up to be Jones’ next project, certainly not huge by today’s standards, and if Source Code does well there’s a good chance that studios will be throwing that sort of money at the director. Although the conversation then turned to what the director’s actual film will be,
I will say this; you know what a big fan I am of BLADE RUNNER…but there’s all this news on the Internet lately about the rights to BLADE RUNNER being bought up…I’m interested in doing a city-based science fiction film. And this is going to do all the geeky things I would want [from one of those kinds of films].
City-based sci-fi? It’s a damn shame Judge Dredd and Mr Jones didn’t get to meet. But at least we’re looking forward to spending more time in the company of one of most talented directors of our day.
